By George Robbins
There are a few different films that have become societal staples over the years due to just he sheer audacity that it seen throughout them. Many of these films are often made as a parody of some aspect of the society in which we find ourselves living in. Others are parodies of society itself and this is the type of film which is often viewed with many favorable eyes as they are movies that make fun of everything we see on a daily basis. When it comes to these satirical movies, they are often times raunchy looks at parts of society that can be seen as just straight up ridiculous from an outside perspective. No one has really done better at showing off this type of film in recent years as Sacha Baron Cohen.
Cohen is responsible for a number of films over the years that look at various forms of comedy, but they usually center around cringe comedy, black comedy, and the aforementioned satirical comedy. He has been a huge part of the comedy scene for a good portion of his life and he is known throughout the world for the roles he plays in his films. He is single-handedly responsible for the creation of some of the craziest films some people may ever see. He has also received countless commendations for his role in the movie industry as a whole for everything he has ever worked on. The one project that most people will end up knowing him for, however, is one by the title of ‘Borat.’
The movie was made as a comedy where he would play the titular character playing a fictional journalist who would ask questions of American citizens about what life was like in America. The movie covered countless aspects of American life and it was a comedy that no one would ever be able to forget due to his portrayal of a character who was actually interacting with people in real life. It was something not really seen by the public before and it drew in a ton of attention. Cohen had said years ago that the character was going to be retired because it became too popular, but not too long ago it was reported that people saw him in-character driving around. It turns out that he has apparently already finished shooting the movie and it has been screened to a few select people in the industry. So we may just end up seeing the movie in the not too distant future.
By George Robbins
Disney is a company unlike most others in the world due to the fact that they are a media company which controls countless forms of media. Essentially, Disney is just inching closer and closer to becoming a full-fledged monopoly and controlling most franchises available on the open-market. They still have a long way to go before they legitimately control anywhere close to everything in the media medium but they have control over some of the biggest franchises in existence. This most certainly helps their case and makes them a force to contend with. However, they did not start out as being this massively powerful company and, in fact, they originally only really started off with a couple of cartoons, movies, and a small amusement park.
While I make this out to not sound all that impressive, it actually is because not many companies can do the same thing. In fact, they have become famous for those things over the years and this is extremely difficult for any kind of company to pull off these days. Their movies, animated or otherwise, are what they are mostly known for in the worldwide market, but they are not the only thing that make them famous. A huge part of their fame stems from the fact that they have amusement parks which are world famous that show off the countless franchises and films that they have produced over the years. Most of these parks have actually managed to reopen at this point in time as well.
Many people were not happy to here that the amusement parks would be reopening in the midst of the pandemic and it has been a pressing issue ever since. They have limitations in place, but many feel that it is nowhere near safe enough for them to actually be open to the public again. Now, there is even more information which has been coming out that is showing us that these fears may just be justified. According to Disney employees, the company is still having people work even if they have tested positive for the virus. This has given people a lot of pause and a lot to think about moving forward because it just makes people think that they don’t care about what is going on.
By George Robbins
Disney+, the Disney Company’s premiere streaming service, is a service that has managed to cement its place as a solid online service. When the service was first announced last year, it immediately gained the favor of almost every single Disney fan out there. This is due to the fact that the service boasted the fact that pretty much every single movie and show in the Disney library would be available to everyone who subscribed to their new service. This gave plenty of incentive for fans to almost immediately sign up for the new service and very quickly, Disney exceeded their own expectations. Disney+ became even more popular than they ever really expected it to be and it has gone strong ever since.
Disney has always had a strong presence all over the world and that has only become more and more apparent over the years as they continue expanding into as many media markets as possible. Essentially, they have the world itself in their pockets and it only continues to show more as time goes on. For instance, they continue to release new content and people all over the world will jump at that content in no time at all. Thus, it is actually more surprising when Disney says that something they are doing has exceeded their own expectations. Disney+ is the prime example of this in recent history and on Disney+, ‘Mulan‘ has demonstrated this fact best.
‘Mulan’ is the recent live-action iteration of the classic animated film which was released by Disney over 20 years ago. The film itself has become a classic film to everyone in the western world and, as such, it was a prime candidate to be remade in a live-action format. Disney has been making it a trend in recent years to go back to their most popular animated films and make some kind of live-action versions of those films. While the live-action versions do well on their own, they don’t do as well as the original animated films had done. This doesn’t really matter though as, like already stated, they are overall successful. Disney wanted to take advantage of this with ‘Mulan’ but due to the pandemic, they had to change up their release method.
Originally, ‘Mulan’ was meant to have a theatrical release, but due to the pandemic, they instead decided to release the film straight to Disney+ with a premium. This means that subscribers would have the chance to own the film on Disney+ if they paid a $30 premium on top of their subscription. Meanwhile in China, where Disney+ is not available, the movie would still have a theatrical release in order to cash-in on the theatrical market. This past weekend was the release weekend for the film on Disney+ and it saw Disney+ downloads spike by 68% just for this movie’s release. There is really no way of telling at the moment what kind of trend this will cause, but it is definitely an increase that people were not expecting.
By George Robbins
As we are all now currently aware of, ‘Suicide Squad‘ is a movie that released back in 2016 which saw the gathering of many DC comic book villains. This gathering of villains was rightfully named the titular Suicide Squad because they were forced by the government to go on life or death missions to save the world. This is the premise behind the comic books of the same name and we saw a glimpse of this with the movie when it released back in 2016. The premise was a good one as it saw the opportunity for villains to be seen as anti-heroes instead of just the straight-up terrible people we knew them to be. Hence, the movie was stacked to make it worthy of the public’s adoration, but so much ended up going wrong with the film.
When the film first released, it was a movie that many DC fans were very much looking forward to seeing because it allowed for another side of the DC universe to be seen. It gave people the chance to bear witness to a part of the DC universe where villains were given a more expanded role than the ones normally seen on screen. For instance, when a villain is usually seen on screen, they are often times shown to be the epitome of evil and we aren’t given a chance to sympathize with them. Thus we do nothing throughout the movie but root for the heroes to succeed in their mission of defeating the villains and saving the day. This is pretty sad though, because the DC universe is one that is full of relatively sympathetic villains, but also has its share of lunatics.
‘Suicide Squad’ was meant to show off a combination of both of these types of villains by giving us a story focusing on the titular squad and their foes. The enemies of the Suicide Squad are the villains that we know we can’t root for and we know that they are the worst of the worst. Whereas, we know that the members of the squad are the more sympathetic characters that we can put ourselves in the shoes of. Unfortunately, this is not how the movie ended up working out and we ended up with a film that just ended up being confusing. At this point in time, it has now become apparent that this is definitely not how the movie was intended to be. Director David Ayer has said that there were many changes made before the film’s release.
In the released film, much of what happened on screen ended up confusing the general audience at large and ended up being a huge negative for the franchise. No one who went to see the movie could see things the way that the director originally intended which gave the movie a muddled tone that no one could truly understand. This turns out to have been the case because, apparently, the studio was responsible for making a lot of changes to the film after it was already finished. Ayer admitted that the reshoots for the film were not his idea and that very little of what he actually wanted in the film was able to make it in. After the announcement that a Director’s Cut was going to be releasing for 2017’s ‘Justice League,’ Ayer made it clear that he wants to release his own cut for ‘Suicide Squad.’
Needless to say, the 2016 release was pretty much considered to be a disappointment by many fans and thus we ended up with a film very few liked. It wasn’t considered a terrible film, but it definitely wasn’t one that people were happy with as it received mixed reviews from all over. Thus, it is not too much of a surprise that the studio is now trying to draw peoples’ attention back to the franchise with the upcoming movie ‘The Suicide Squad.’ This upcoming film is also known as ‘Suicide Squad 2,’ but it is less a sequel and more of a spiritual sequel to the original film with mostly new characters. Unlike the previous film, ‘Guardians of the Galaxy‘ director James Gunn is manning the helm for this film. Not only that, the movie will also feature an entirely new cast of characters for us to follow throughout the film.
Gunn has made it clear so far to the public that it will be his version of the movie, and not a studio one, that we will end up seeing in theaters next year. During the recent online convention for DC content known as DC FanDome, fans were given the chance to see the first content related to ‘The Suicide Squad,’ including what characters we would be seeing in the film and who would be playing them. Named chiefly among these characters was the character Bloodsport who will be played by actor Idris Elba. We have known that Elba was attached to the project for quite some time, but we never knew who he was playing in the film until recently. It turns out, in a strange twist, that Gunn wrote the character for Elba before even having the chance to meet the man as he saw the character as a perfect fit for him. We will really get to see if this was the correct move for Gunn to make when the film releases in early August of next year.
By George Robbins
Now that movie productions are starting to get back on track, studios have been giving it their all to get their films back up and running again. This mostly just includes getting all of their cast and crew that they can muster up to go back out and continue working on their films. Given the fact that all productions were cancelled due to the pandemic, many studios are very much glad to get their crews back to work. While some companies may have movies in their backlog now that they haven’t been able to release them to the public, some studios need films ready. Not every studio is currently jumping at the opportunity to put their movies out right now as the movie industry is still a relatively volatile climate.
The current climate for movie releases is one where at any moment, movie theaters could once again be closed down and this isn’t great for studios. It means that they have to properly time when they will release their films and on top of that, they will need to account for the fact that theaters now have new restrictions in place limiting the number of people who can be there simultaneously. Therefore studios would much rather have a back catalog of movies just so that when they can, they can start releasing their movies. This will give them a bit of a cushion and it allows them more of a chance to generate future revenue without putting unnecessary stress on their crews. That being said, they are doing pretty well with what they currently have available to them.
One of the best instances of this is the continued filming of movies that were being worked on before the pandemic began. Among the movies that were being worked on was the next installment in the ‘Mission: Impossible’ franchise, aptly named ‘Mission: Impossible 7.’ Like all previous installments, this movie seems like it will be pushing what the actors, namely Tom Cruise, are capable of. This has been made all the more obvious as of late after a set video released showing a set up stunt on the side of a cliff. The stunt in question sees Cruise essentially jumping a motorcycle off of a cliff and I’m certain it will be a scene to behold in the movie. Now we just have to wait until next year to see the end result of the filming.
By George Robbins
Lately, there has been a ton of different news about movies that are going to be coming out, as well as movies that have already been out for awhile. This is how we’ve ended up with so many discussions as of late about movies that have already been out for a long time now and how they should be different. A majority of these conversations started happening after the release of information about an upcoming directorial cut of a movie that many people have wanted for a couple of years now. That upcoming movie is the ‘Justice League‘ movie that released back in 2017 which we now know will be getting a new cut which will release to the public some time in early 2021.
This upcoming rendition of the ‘Justice League’ movie was spurred on by the fact that fans were not content with the original final product. This stems from the fact that the original film had two different directors because the first one, Zack Snyder, had to step down early on to deal with a family tragedy. After the release of the film, fans believed that the end result was one that was not really in-line with what the director would have wanted. After a lot of complaining from the public, Warner Bros. decided to give Snyder a budget to make his own version of the film which will premiere early next year on their HBO Max streaming service. With this news, many other fans believed that this was not the only movie to be messed with during production.
This theory would be one that is apparently true as the director of the 2016 DC film ‘Suicide Squad,’ David Ayer, confirmed that his movie did not turn out like he wanted it to. Ever since the announcement of the Snyder Cut for ‘Justice League,’ Ayer has been asking fans to petition for a director’s cut of his film. Since then, a lot of different news has come out revealing just how different the film ended up being from its original rendition. Many changes were made after the film was already released which is what Ayer blames for the movie doing so poorly. However, it seems that not every fan theory about the film’s production was true because Ayer revealed recently that, despite fan theories, the movie was never meant to be an R-Rated film.
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